Free Separate Beds by Elizabeth Buchan

with her and reached for their chequebooks.
    ‘Of course I’d tell you.’

Chapter Six
    Sadie was right. Be strong. If at this particular juncture it seemed a bit ambitious it was, at the very least, a useful ambition on which to attach an anchor. Think robust . Think survival .
    The morning after Tom had told her his news, she had been up very early. Down in the kitchen, she discovered a half-drunk mug of tea and a slice of toast with only one bite out of it, but Tom was nowhere to be seen. After a search, she tracked him down in the cellar.
    According to local lore, an ancient rivulet ran under the street. As a consequence, the cellar smelt damp, musty and – as Annie always fancied – shrouded in time and decay. Whitewash peeled off the walls, the beaten-earth floor was cold and unforgiving, and the space was stuffed with empty bottles, rubbish, abandoned packing cases and racks of Tom’s wine.
    Looking cold and exhausted, Tom was stacking boxes in a corner.
    ‘Tom, what are you doing down here?’
    He did not look round. ‘I need to make space for my office stuff that’s being sent over.’
    ‘There isn’t room. Anyway, won’t it spoil? You know, get mouldy?’
    He turned round and knocked a couple of empty Kilner jars poised precariously on a makeshift shelf. Grabbing atthem, he said, ‘You won’t want it in the house. You’d hate it.’ He shoved the jars back on the shelf. ‘Whatever else is going to happen, I wanted to spare you that.’
    ‘Tom.’ She stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets. ‘It isn’t your fault.’
    ‘Isn’t it?’ His voice warned her not to trespass too far on his feelings. ‘It’s me they’re getting rid of. Oh, I know they dressed it up about splitting the job. But it’s true.’ He looked away. ‘I can read them.’
    ‘Even so.’
    He heaved the final box on to the top of the stack. ‘Nice to know you don’t blame me for that as well as everything else.’ The dirt trapped between the boxes made a grinding sound. ‘Nice to think you don’t plan to crow over me.’
    She flushed. ‘That was uncalled-for.’
    ‘Was it?’
    ‘Stop it.’ Annie knew he was lashing out because he was in anguish. All the same. ‘We have to talk properly. About what to do. You know …’
    ‘So you can make a list? Let me see … at the top. “Reassure Tom that he’s not a failure” … Or “Remember to take the old boy to the knackers’ yard”.’
    ‘Tom, that doesn’t help.’ Impatient with her own verbal inadequacies, she shrugged helplessly. ‘It’s claustrophobic down here.’
    Tom wiped his dirty fingers on a handkerchief. ‘Yes, yes. Talk we must. But I can’t think straight at the moment.’
    ‘OK. OK.’ She had to give him space. She was willing to give him space.
    ‘You don’t understand, the job was my life.’ His admissionwas shocking and she knew it had only been forced from him by desperation.
    ‘I know,’ Annie said. I know . ‘And I do understand. I promise I do.’
    He tapped his head. ‘You do there,’ he said. ‘But here?’ He tapped his chest.
    She responded passionately: ‘Tom, don’t.’ He glanced up at her through narrowed lids. ‘I know that look. It means you don’t want anyone to know how deep … how deep it goes.’ She reached over and touched one of the unstable Kilner jars with a fingertip. ‘But it’s permissible to feel like that.’
    He swung away from her. ‘Am I so transparent? Yes, yes, of course I am. But, Annie …’ Over his shoulder he sent her the ghost of a grin. ‘But, yes … I am hurt. Hurting. I feel like … like someone has taken a knife to my guts.’ Again he turned away. ‘I want to kill them.’
    She stared at the jars masked in their grime. Did I really once make raspberry jam? Did Tom once have his job? ‘Tom, let’s put your things somewhere else. This is not the place.’
    He was bitter, very bitter. ‘Why not here, Annie? Bury ’em. Like I’m buried.’
    His misery was like a cloud of